Do i always have to have a roaring fire?

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oldspark said:
pen said:
W/ dry wood 3 med pieces will get great secondary action and a hot stove top. I don't see any problem w/ having a small fire and a clean burn.

pen
I agree but that is the dirtiest part of the burn, the cold startup.

Sure is. But it doesn't last long and a small fire can be a clean fire in an EPA stove w/ secondary air. Just don't expect it to be done w/ the air control completely closed.

I don't agree w/ BK about this process being dirtier in an EPA stove. If the fire is REALLY small, just leave the air wide control wide open and you effectively have a pre-epa stove w/ lots of air rushing in. The secondaries are only active if the primary is shut down a good deal.

pen
 
Burn your maple first and save the oak for later. Mix in some pallet wood or Bio (Geo/Eco, etc.) bricks.
 
pen said:
W/ dry wood 3 med pieces will get great secondary action and a hot stove top. I don't see any problem w/ having a small fire and a clean burn.

A hot stove top with a small fire is not his problem. The OP is trying to get low heat output with a small fire, and still burn cleanly. That is always a challenge in the beginning.

Chrism said:
My Isle Royale is an animal !! When I put a couple logs in and get a bed of hot coals in it after 1 to 2 hrs my house is 80. Sometimes I would like to have a small fire just to take the chill out of the air but I see a thin shiny black coating on the inside of my stove in some spots. Any infor about this and what to do ?? Thank you.

If two logs on a bed of coals is getting a "raging fire" going, chances are his wood is acceptable. Isn't that the number one problem I keep reading on here? That less than optimum wood = smoldering burns, poor heat output, and a cold house? Well, when the OP burns his wood the way the stove was designed, he is getting a good, hot burn. Too hot. What does that tell you?

I see this as mostly a shoulder season problem. New burners just don't have a grasp on how much heat a stove can pump out with even a small load, and how hot their place will get when the temperature differential between inside and outside is not great. Heat doesn't transfer rapidly during those conditions, and it builds up inside making it uncomfortable. We all suffer from this unless our heat output is being regulated by wood fiber being fed into a burn pot with an auger. We deal with it until we can put a proper load in there. True, the OP's wood may not be ideal, but that isn't the only way to get creosote deposits inside the box. In fact, if he runs his EPA stove in a non-EPA fashion as you recommend, his creosote should actually be less with moister wood.
 
pen said:
Chrism said:
My wood was split since april ?????

I've burned ash (which comes off the stump drier than many species) seasoned for 7 mo's and it wasn't ready yet. That stuff sat for a year in rounds prior to that. Really takes at LEAST a full year for most species, 2 or more if OAK.

pen
I dont get that, I can get ash to the teens in one long summer.
 
Battenkiller said:
In fact, if he runs his EPA stove in a non-EPA fashion as you recommend, his creosote should actually be less with moister wood.

Not as I recommend as much as this weather dictates when using one of these stoves properly. I was simply refuting your point about an EPA stove being worse than a pre-epa for these conditions. Run properly, that is not a true statement.

You however seem to want to overcomplicate this.

I'm done helping you destroy yet another thread.

My apologies to the original poster.

pen
 
Yes.








---

Well yes . . . if you want to burn cleanly and efficiently . . . the secret to burning in the shoulder season though is to use any punks, chunks and uglies you might have, don't overload the stove and do not reload the stove . . . have a quick, hot fire and let the stove warm up and then in turn warm up the house . . . it may not be as quick as turning on the oil furnace . . . but it will get there.

What I do is have the one, quick hot fire . . . and within the hour the place is comfortably warm -- not too hot and not too cool . . . and the temp will level out and stay pretty consistent as long as I don't add more wood to the fire or forget to close the back door.
 
A clean burn is done with the right stack temp is it not, so he is useing too big of wood correct, I can do any thing I want with a small fire as long as its good and hot.
 
roaring fire..yes... it helps anyway..

If I smoother a fire built with kiln dried 2x4s its going to leave a bit of residue.

If I crank the primary air it gets hot quick. leaves no residue.

I can jam the primary air up and keep some pretty wet wood blazing too.

what I have found is their is no blanket statments... for the most part.


JMO

I am still in testing mode
 
mecreature said:
roaring fire..yes... it helps anyway..

If I smoother a fire built with kiln dried 2x4s its going to leave a bit of residue.

If I crank the primary air it gets hot quick. leaves no residue.

I can jam the primary air up and keep some pretty wet wood blazing too.

what I have found is their is no blanket statments... for the most part.

There is nothing that I disagree with here.


I'm truly sorry that so many of you find that answering questions with industry-based facts taken from those in the forefront of these technologies is disruptive. I can take my thoughts, quotes, and observations somewhere else, as many of you seem to wish.
 
As I have said many times before I like your posts BK, I dont agree with the moderators all the time, as far as you ruining posts that is his opinion , I suppose we can close this thread now.
 
Wow. Everybody's throwing around facts. How about just a plain old observation.

If you have shiny stuff in the stove after a fire, you're not burning hot enough. It could be the wood or it could be burning at too low of a setting. This time of year it's not a big deal. I'm getting a bit of that in my stove with slab wood that's been stacked for over a year.

Two months from now when you're burning that stove for all its worth, you should not see the shiny stuff. If you do then it's a cause for concern. As for cleaning it. Don't be paranoid. There are people who regularly chip 5 gallons of sticky creosote out of a chimney and chimney fires still aren't super commonplace. There are people out there that create chimney fires as a way to clean the chimney. I'm not saying there smart, but they all aren't dying.

Wait until you have a bit of a warm day in mid December or early January and take a look down the chimney and see what's there.

I'm all for being cautious. And I realize I'm still a relative newbie. I have only put 25 or so cords through my Summit, but EPA stoves burn clean. Even when you don't use them correctly, they still burn cleaner than a fireplace for a pre-EPA stove. And if you're install is done properly, at the very least it should handle one chimney fire without destroying the house.

Relax enjoy the stove and learn what you can about burning with wood.
 
Sorry I didn't realize this topic would be a bone of contention!! Is there a thermometer that you guys lean towards I'm heading to home depot or lowes now. Thanks
 
Is this a good one to use and it says not for double wall stove pipe. So can I just lay it ontop of the stove ??
 

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I like the condars better but that should work, and you should be able to put on the stove top, you should have one for the stack also.
 
Hope this isn't a dumb question but if it is so be it . If the stove is burning at 300 wouldn't the stack be ????
 
The only real concern I have w/ the rutland is that the "burn zone" is a bit low in the temp scale. The rutlands use an average of what temps should be seen as a max for stove top and stove pipe. Condar makes separate thermometers for each application. 650 should be a reasonable "red line" for your stove top.

pen
 
Rutland or Condar will work. On the Isle Royale, most people put the thermometer in the middle or slightly to the left of middle on the griddle top.
Agree with Pen on upper temps. Try to keep it under 700, and you should be fine. I find it runs best at 550 and above. With a smaller fire,
use less wood and start cutting the air at 550. Leave enough air coming in to keep the temps up there. As the wood burns up, temps will
start coasting down, but then most of the volatile bad stuff has burned off
 
Chrism said:
Is this a good one to use and it says not for double wall stove pipe. So can I just lay it ontop of the stove ??


It will be just fine. You don't need exact numbers. You just need a good estimate. All stove top thermometers vary. If it reads 560 You know you are burning at around 550. If it reads 585-590 you know you are near 600. This is more than good enough to know what's going on.
 
On the ones I have they are 100 to 150 degrees off in the upper temp. ranges when compard to a IR tester.
 
Chrism said:
Hope this isn't a dumb question but if it is so be it . If the stove is burning at 300 wouldn't the stack be ????

That varies from stove to stove. The Heritage is known for hot stove pipes. The Encore Runs at about 250 surface temp on a single wall pipe when the cat is engaged and the stove is at 600.

The Vigilant, in horizontal burn, can actually have a cooler pipe temp than the Heritage when the Vig is cruising.
 
oldspark said:
On the ones I have they are 100 to 150 degrees off in the upper temp. ranges when compard to a IR tester.

Found a similar thing, my condar reads spot on until about 725 and then it just about freezes up.

pen
 
oldspark said:
On the ones I have they are 100 to 150 degrees off in the upper temp. ranges when compard to a IR tester.


The four I have vary in a 150 degree range with the two in the middle being north or south of the IR gun buy 10-30 degrees. The other two are... inconsistent to say the least.
 
pen said:
oldspark said:
On the ones I have they are 100 to 150 degrees off in the upper temp. ranges when compard to a IR tester.

Found a similar thing, my condar reads spot on until about 725 and then it just about freezes up.

pen


I'm pretty sure one of the two that I have that are inconsistent is the one that I pegged the needle with a few times on the Vigilant...
 
We have a couple different stovetop thermometers....I have found the Rutland stovetop one reads about 100 degrees higher than the IR thermometer...the Condar one is pretty much the same as the IR gun....
My husband asked me one day.."Am I gonna come home one day to find about 10 different thermometers on the stove and the pipe?" So I was a lil obsessive last year.... :ahhh: It was my first year dammit...
Now we have the IR gun.... :)
 
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